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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29698593">Enough</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrine11/pseuds/citrine11'>citrine11</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Good Morgana (Merlin), M/M, Magic Revealed, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Pre-Relationship, and that merlin kept his secret long after he should have spilled the beans, and their friendship trajectory, basically i got angry that morgana dismissed gwen so easily, merlin/arthur and gwen/morgana implied but you could read them both as close friendships as well</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 03:07:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29698593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrine11/pseuds/citrine11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen and Morgana have it out about Morgana's betrayal of them all. Merlin decides to finally start sharing his magic with his close friends.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gwen &amp; Morgana (Merlin), Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin &amp; Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As the tags say, I was watching the episode where Gwen starts to realize Morgana is evil and I just snapped. Listen. Their friendship was afforded no respect in the writing, and it pissed me off enough to write this.</p><p>And then while I was at it I got angry about Merlin continuing to hide everything from everyone when really, coming clean might have changed everything for the better. </p><p>So, here you go! A very self-indulgent one shot about what I believe could have been a true turning point for these characters who deserve so much better.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I thought you were my friend,” Gwen spat.</p>
<p>Morgana seethed.</p>
<p>She opened her mouth but Guinevere cut her off before she could even begin to spew her litany of excuses, a tirade of slights that had been weighing her down like thick silks for years. <em>You’re loyal to them, you tow the line. You obey. You love him.</em></p>
<p>“No,” Gwen said, looking deep into Morgana’s glowing eyes. “I loved you. Before I loved Arthur, before I even knew him. So don’t you dare look at me like you have everyone else and say I’m a part of this, a part of all that you’re trying to spurn, to destroy.”</p>
<p>Gwen’s voice was raised now, cracking under the weight of her emotions, “Because I loved you, first, I loved you first and you were the one who left me!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Morgana stumbled back and sank to the floor. For the first time since she’d met Morgause, there were no words in her throat and no power at her fingertips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It had been Gauis’s wise instruction, when he was just a boy, just a young warlock, and it had been considered, calculated, careful. It had been cautious and it was born out of love and protection.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And it was tearing everything apart. Merlin could finally see it, a constellation of mistakes and disasters lit up in his mind at night all stretching back to that one impossible, obvious decision to keep his magic from everyone he loved, everyone he held dear. From Gwen and Morgana and Gwaine. From Arthur.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>From Arthur. All this time. And for what? He’d told himself, and been assured, that it was for his own safety, for protection from Uther, from prejudice, from being targeted by other sorcerers. He’d told himself it was for the best, it was to keep his ego in check, stay a lowly servant and keep himself humble.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And maybe it had been. But, he decided, finally, certainly, placing the scroll on Arthur’s desk, it was over.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was too old now, too wise in his own right to let Gaius make his decisions for him. He had been for some time.</p>
<p>And he was tired. Of the lack of credit, of the grunt work, maybe a bit.</p>
<p>But mostly he was tired of lying to his best friend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was tired of pretending, destiny or no, that he had ever been interested in protecting the sort of person who might kill him for something he couldn’t control.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And he was tired of wondering where, exactly, that left him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the edge of the woods, he waited. Arthur would be here soon enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Morgana’s soul was collapsing. At least, that’s what it felt like.</p>
<p>To be honest, she was rather surprised to find she still had one.</p>
<p>She’d let herself become a sharper, harder self after she left with Morgause. Let herself subsist on loyalty to a new cause, on her anger, while her compassion curdled and bled out of her day by day, encouraged each moment by the image of Merlin pouring poison.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But it was Gwen, not Merlin, who stood before her now. Incensed and hurt, something hardening behind her eyes that Morgana realized, with a sinking feeling, was entirely her own fault. Somewhere she could reach, without the touch of magic, with just her own personhood, that no one else could.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And she’d ruined it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When she reached up, Gwen flinched, and for the first time in a long time, Morgana was not thrilled at the power of being able to make someone else afraid.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Gwen.” She felt a voice rasp from her throat as she caught her former friend’s sleeve, and it felt like someone else’s. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gwen’s eyes shone with tears but her face remained closed off. “I wish I believed you. But I don’t.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Morgana nodded, then, feeling nauseous. Her decisions swirled before her and suddenly she felt uncertain, on a precipice. When had she become quite this person? She thought she’d grown up, but it was suddenly, painfully clear to her that she was not the more enlightened person in the room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She knew she could force her way out, but she didn’t have to. Her maid stepped to the side, eyes cast at the floor. Perhaps she believed Morgana would carry on as usual. Perhaps she was planning something else.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Morgana drew herself up and walked out of the room. There were contacts to reach, plans to continue. She didn’t approach them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She walked to the castle gates. She walked to the edge of the woods, head spinning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She kept walking.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>This was ridiculous.</p>
<p>Arthur had returned from a ride, exhausted, and found his quarters empty. There was a note on his desk. An excuse, perhaps.</p>
<p>No, not that. Merlin never left excuses, only came up with them late and badly, long after he’d returned from his unauthorized leave.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Meet me in the woods</em>, it read.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A trick, he was sure. He’d half a mind to go to his father, rally for forces, so sure he was that this was a threat, a game. Not that his father had ever been particularly thrilled at his insistence on saving Merlin’s life. No, he’d go alone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So it was alone he reached the clearing where they sometimes wandered, and it was alone that he found Merlin, as well. No troops, no bandits. Just his servant, his friend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s this?” Arthur asked, torn between keeping an eye out for any hidden traps and knocking Merlin upside the head for interrupting his evening.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have to tell you something.” Merlin looked pale, but not ill. He was too composed to be dying, too alert to be drugged.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Arthur swallowed back the feeling that he was missing something very important. “Spit it out, then.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have magic.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Something sharp loosened in Arthur’s gut. This was a joke. It had to be.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He fought back the sudden notion that this, of all things, would almost make sense, and forced a laugh. “Sure, Merlin, and I’m engaged to Lancelot. Seriously, what are you out here for?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He searched his friends eyes for a familiar glint of mischief, or a hint of fear he’d somehow missed, proof there was a problem afoot and they would fight it—</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They would fight it. Together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Merlin couldn’t fight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was nothing. Merlin’s hands were empty and his eyes were honest. Arthur felt lightheaded.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No you don’t,” he said, and he felt the desperation coat every syllable.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A memory forced its way to the front of his mind. Merlin shouting at him that his father was right. Merlin promising that Morgause was out to twist his mind, that all magic was a tool, a weapon, all aimed at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No. Merlin shouting at him as he lashed out at his father, half out of his mind. Merlin pulling him back from something he couldn’t come back from.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I do,” Merlin said, and his eyes were open and they were honest and they were pools of liquid gold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thunder punctuated his words and Arthur turned to the horizon, where he was sure he hadn’t seen any clouds, and then with dawning realization turned to his friend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His friend, who was spinning a thunderstorm between his hands as easily as a ball of yarn.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well?” Merlin’s voice didn’t sound any more powerful.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d say it sounded...sad.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leave it to this idiot to be impatient even when dumping the secret of a lifetime on him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, fuck,” Arthur replied eloquently.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Rain began to pour as Morgana tore through the trees, away from Camelot, away from her home<em>—</em>and it was, wasn’t it, after all this, still her home. She wasn’t going to Morgause. She knew, somehow, just as she had once known her nightmares would come true.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Just as she knew that Gwen stood at the window of her chambers watching her flee, cloak a red shimmer through the trees, just as she knew the gravity of her old friend's gaze was pulling her back to a center she’d long since spun away from.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She didn’t know where she was going, aside from one thing: it was nowhere she’d ever been before. Not to the druids, not to her sister, not to her home. None of them would take whoever it was she found herself becoming, and so she pushed forward into the night, alone.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Merlin fought to keep his face strong, calm, and open as he stared at Arthur, even as the rain swirled around them and lightning began to flash in the distance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He waited. For what, he wasn’t sure. A connection, maybe—the wind, the light, something, anything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Or a shout, a betrayal, an admonishment. The first step in a series that would fall like dominoes to the inevitable death sentence. He still wasn’t quite sure exactly what he’d do if it came.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He didn’t realize he’d fallen to his knees until he registered that Arthur had stepped closer, and Merlin had to lean his head back to look up into his face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If it weren’t for the rain, he might have said Arthur was crying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The impact, in the end, wasn’t from a sword or a punch, but just the weight of his best friend flinging himself at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He felt more than heard it, muffled into his neck.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>You idiot.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and they fell back into the mud.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Gwen attempts to tell Arthur and Merlin that Morgana is a) magic, b) evil, and c) gone.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I didn't intend to write a continuation of this story, but y'all got to me!</p><p>Also shout out to my girlfriend who yelled at me to finish my fics and gave me an idea for the plot.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Did we really have to meet <em> here </em>?” Arthur sneered, glancing around Merlin’s messy quarters. </p><p> </p><p>“Hey!” Merlin protested. “I’ll have you know my room is―”</p><p> </p><p>“―Full of elicit magical books and items?”</p><p> </p><p>“Clean. Relatively. Relatively clean.” </p><p> </p><p>“Relative to <em> what? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Boys. Boys!” Gwen stopped her pacing to interrupt, stepping slightly between them. She paused. “Wait―did you say magical books?”</p><p> </p><p>Merlin looked pointedly at the ground and Arthur started. After a moment, they both spoke at once. </p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t mean to keep it from you―”</p><p> </p><p>“It is a delicate situation with a lot of nuance that is entirely under my control―”</p><p> </p><p>Gwen shook her head. “No, no, this is...this is good. I think.” </p><p> </p><p>Merlin paled. “You think?”</p><p> </p><p>She perched on the edge of the bed. “Not about that, Merlin. I don’t care about...I mean, I’m sure you...we can talk about that later. I just mean it might be particularly useful in this situation.”</p><p> </p><p>Arthur drew himself up taller, absently stepping to block the doorway. “Yes, what situation? What did you want us here for?”</p><p> </p><p>Gwen took a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. “Morgana.” </p><p> </p><p>Merlin’s breath hitched. They both looked towards him. “...Yes?” He held his hands up in mock innocence. </p><p> </p><p>“She’s...okay, well, a few things. First, I’ve reason to believe she has magic as well.” Gwen paused to let this dawn on her friends. </p><p> </p><p>“What?! Morgana? You mean―<em> Morgana </em> Morgana?” Arthur stopped his tirade, whirling on a conspicuously silent Merlin. “ <em> You knew? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Merlin, Gwen noted, looked deeply confused. “I thought we already went over this. No more secrets," he said. </p><p> </p><p>“Good <em> grief </em>Merlin, for some reason I thought you were smart enough to follow along.” Arthur sighed and looked up at Gwen guiltily. He opened his mouth hesitantly. “I...yes. Yes, we know. Is there something else?”</p><p> </p><p>Gwen was torn between laughing or knocking their heads together. “Then I suppose you also know that she’s had a tendency towards...more unsavory magic. Lately. One might say...rather evil.” </p><p> </p><p>Arthur’s head was in his hands. “We haven’t come up with a plan yet. But yes. She’s a traitor. I...I know. Okay. Well, at least if we have to deal with this situation, I’m glad...I’m glad to have you both on my side. In the know.”</p><p> </p><p>He moved as though to dismiss their meeting, but Gwen raised a hand to stop him. </p><p> </p><p>“Wait. There’s more.” </p><p> </p><p>At this, Arthur and Merlin both turned to her with renewed interest. </p><p> </p><p>Merlin was still quiet, but Arthur urged her on. “Oh?”</p><p> </p><p>“She and I...well, we had it out, last night. I criticized her choices, her logic. I understand, forgive me Arthur, but I understand resenting Uther as well as anyone. He took my father from me. But turning on us? Her friends? I couldn’t just let her stand there, smirking, after all she’d done…” Gwen’s voice got softer. “She was my best friend. I loved her before I knew any of you.” </p><p> </p><p>When she looked up, Merlin’s eyes sparkled with pride. </p><p> </p><p>Arthur’s expression was a bit more shocked, though he schooled it quickly. “Alright, and what did she say? Did anything come of this?”</p><p> </p><p>Gwen nodded, back to business. “Yes. She apologized, though I’m not quite sure for what, or to whom. But...it was a start, you know? It was something. And then...well, then she left. She didn’t vanish as a sorcerer would, she just walked.” Gwen paused, and then rushed to amend her statements. “And look, I know she’s dangerous, and I know―but maybe―” She looked at Merlin, biting her lip, an unspoken question in her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Arthur filled in for her. “You know she’s dangerous, but she’s family. And maybe we can...apprehend her, before someone else does. Or before she does something worse. Because we have Merlin.” </p><p> </p><p>Gwen exhaled a deep sigh of relief. “Yes. Yes, exactly. I’m glad you understand.” </p><p> </p><p>Arthur turned to Merlin, then, expression caught between questioning and demanding. </p><p> </p><p>“Of course,” Merlin said, finally. “Of course. It’s...it’s my fault she’s like this.” His voice shook. </p><p> </p><p>Arthur glared at him, gripping his arm tightly. “Of course it’s not, Merlin. That’s ridiculous.” </p><p> </p><p>Gwen gave him a soft smile and looped her arm in Merlin’s. “She’s hurt all of us, Merlin, and I believe, whether knowing it or not, that we’ve all hurt her too.”</p><p> </p><p>“So we’ll all go. To Morgause, or, or wherever she’s gone. Together.” Arthur lifted his chin and put on his best leader face. “Merlin, you work on how to locate her. Guinevere, you’re in charge of supplies. Me, I’ll handle...our absences, and everything else.”</p>
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